"The Wrestling Machine" Merrick Brycen
Joshua Clark Martin (born November 21, 1984) is an American Professional Wrestler, better known by his in ring name, Merrick Byrcen. Brycen is known for his tenure with American promotion WCSF and current status with Japanese promotion New Japan Pro Wrestling. Career Early life Joshua Martin was born to Eric and Michelle Martin in Greenville, South Carolina on November, 21st 1984. Martin was an all-state-level basketball player at J.L. Mann High School, though during his senior year, he tore his ACL and was unable to get back into playing shape. With no scholarship offers, Brycen enrolled at the University of Phoenix, and traveled to California to train in pro wrestling. Martin trained at both the UPW Wrestling School (under Samoa Joe) and the New Japan Dojo under the ORIGIN program. Martin excelled quickly, quickly finishing the program, and being one of the few Gaijin to travel to Japan and train at New Japan's Tokyo dojo. Shortly after graduating, Martin began a job with New Japan as their associate Gaijin booker and co-head trainer with Rocky Romero. In 2002, Martin, while living in California, started his career under a masked gimmick, CHIMERA, for several promotions across the South, including CWF: Mid-Atlantic and NWA: Wildside, and in California, for Revolution Pro and Ultimate Pro Wrestling. It wasn't until 2004 that Martin took the Merrick Brycen monkier, and made a name for himself in the California wrestling scene in such promotions as PWG, AWS, and Pro Wrestling WAR. His work in California allowed him to tour Japan in 2003 for Dragon Gate under the masked enigma CHIMERA, after his relationship with New Japan went sour due to a confrontation with Jushin Liger. In Japan Brycen began work in Japan in 2003, working with Dragon Gate, tagging with CIMA sparingly as CHIMERA. The two were heated rivals who wished to instead team-up versus being rivals, as they felt they could demolish the competition. His work in Dragon Gate led to him getting work for Pro Wrestling NOAH, due to impressing puroresu legend Kenta Kobashi, with his fast paced then-lucharesu style. Brycen then debuted in NOAH in April under the CHIMERA gimmick, defeating Ricky Marvin by Chimera-Plex. After several months with NOAH as CHIMERA, he was unmasked in a shoot with Toryumon standout and renegade roster NOAH member SUWA. Brycen dropped the gimmick and entered into a feud with SUWA, with Brycen dominating SUWA in all four matches of their singles campaign, and debuting the I.C.F.J.2 finisher. Brycen began to receive respect from the fans for his matches against juniorweight KENTA, and then with tagging with NOAH standout Rage Mishima as the tag team BLACKforte. With Mishima, Brycen captured the GHC Jr. Tag Team Titles and the GHC Tag Team Titles, becoming the only Gaijin team to ever do both in Pro Wrestling NOAH. In early 2005, Brycen announced his signing with the growing American promotion WCSF, and left Japan for the States after his last tour with Dragon Gate. Return To America Brycen came back to America in 2005 to work for growing American promotion WCSF. Brycen debuted quickly for the promotion, establishing himself as a "Renegade of Honor", a play on the ROH wrestling banner. Brycen wrestled several matches on the WCSF Mayhem online only show, High Voltage, before joining the main roster and began a program with then WCSF Crusierweight Champion Tristagi and stand-out Vince Viazon, which produced the first of Brycen's many 5-star matches, the title match at WCSF Hacked, set in the steel cage. Brycen gave Tristagi the It Came From Japan II from the top of the cage to allow Viazon to win the match. Brycen later lost a singles campaign versus Tristagi, before moving on to a high profile feud with Reaper. Enter Reaper & Exit Brycen Brycen entered a feud with Reaper following a set-up by both The Nightwalkers in which they zeroed him out as a threat. This led to Mishima coming to Brycen's aid and a reunion of the BLACKforte team. Brycen and Reaper's feud ended following the WCSF's first Caged Deathmatch. Following the match, Brycen's contract with WCSF was up for renewal, in which Brycen opted to not sign and entered the US indy circuit, working for Ring of Honor and returning to Pro Wrestling Guerrilla before returning to Japan for an extended stay. It Came From Japan Brycen returned to Japan the summer of 2006, working for all three of the biggest promotions in Japan, New Japan Pro Wrestling, All Japan Pro Wrestling, and again Pro Wrestling NOAH. Brycen competed in the G1 Climax, in which he lost to Koji Kanemoto (who later lost to Satoshi Kojima), in All Japan's Champions Carnival (where he lost in the semifinal to Kaz Hayashi), and then in on all NOAH tours that summer, even earning a shot at Jun Akiyama for his GHC Heavyweight Title. Following his tours of NOAH, he again worked for Dragon Gate, joining the Blood Generation and again tagging with CIMA. The matches were notorious for the fast action and Brycen's ability to keep up with the perceived much quicker Dragon Gate workers. The most notorious of the tag matches is when Brycen & CIMA tagged against all of Do-Fixer, in which the team defeated the six members on their own. The match was later helmed as the match of the year contender for 2006. During this tour Brycen stayed with good friend KENTA, and also worked on his application of dual-citizenship in Japan. The Match of The Year Brycen returned to WCSF to work the Wednesday Night Warzone PPV, where Brycen wrestled Bale in what was helmed at Dave Meltzer's match of the year for 2006. Brycen won the match when he gave Bale the It Came From Japan II and followed it up with the KBS, winning by KO due to Bale being unconscious. Brycen was later kayfabe injured by Bale to take care of his Mother's funeral and return to Japan to be in Jun Akiyama's wedding, also working a small tour in the process. Brycen returned to WCSF Unleashed in April 2007, later wrestling Bale on their annual Revolution PPV in a losing effort. Brycen and Bale announced after the match that it was their "swan song" and left the promotion, with Brycen going back to Japan with an exclusive contract for NJPW. The IGNITION Begins Brycen returned to New Japan, starting to train at the dojo with the new students first, and doing work for the promotion in the form of Gaijin booking. Brycen also started planning and preparing TNA stars to come into the New Japan promotion and helped many gain notice, like The Motor City Machine Guns and Team 3D. Brycen's work with the promotion as their Gaijin booker and agent helped establish many workers in other companies also, leading many ROH talents to working in Pro Wrestling NOAH. When Brycen returned to the states, he began working for ROH again, feuding with Austin Aries and Bryan Danielson before agreeing to terms with release from his contract and leaving the promotion due to a dispute with the owners of the promotion involving traveling opportunities and locker room issues with The Briscoe Brothers. Brycen has recently started rumors of a return to WCSF, who recently started to suffer in response to a declining roster and economy. Throughout the year though, nothing seemed to materialize due to Brycen's commitment to the Japanese pro wrestling style and the WCSF's move away from a pro wrestling style product to a sports entertainment style. Brycen, in a non-worked angle with the WCSF, returned to the promotion on Halloween while visiting friends backstage and signing a deal to produce a Merrick Brycen retrospective and DVD. Brycen was brought to feud with Axel Everwinter. However, due to a disagreement in pay, both men no showed their climatic final match at Hacked! Brycen has since returned to Japan, working for New Japan once again, and has begun training for his MMA debut for Japanese promotion DREAM. In Wrestling *'Finishing moves' **'''It Came From Japan 2 ''(Cross-legged fisherman buster) **''The KBS / Koji Bakayaro Stretch / Clockwork Lock ''(Chickenwing over the shoulder Crossface) **''Go 2 Sleep 3 / The Revolution ''(Arm clutch Inverted fireman's carry dropped into a high knee strike to the back of the head) - WCSF **Sitout suplex slam into a keylock transitioned cross arm breaker **''Black Frosion (Vertical suplex lift into sitout side powerslam) **''Landslide Frosion'' (Double underhook sitout side powerslam) **''Guilty Strong Style (Knee kick to the face or back of head) *'Signature moves **Multiple shoot kicks, sometimes to a seated opponent **Roundhouse kick, sometimes to seated opponent **Inverted Exploder suplex **''Myst Crash Suplex'' (Three quarter nelson suplex) **''Sayama Suplex (Crossface chickenwing suplex, sometimes with bridge) **German Suplex hold **Facewash **Folding powerbomb, sometimes transitioned into an STF or Boston Crab **''Last Chancery (Knee strikes to a grounded opponent's head followed by floating over into a bridging arm triangle choke **Dragon Suplex **Snap suplex **Shining Wizard **Snap scoop powerslam **Gamengiri **''Anaconda Vice'' (Arm triangle choke) **Lariat **Enzuiguri **Springboard roundhouse kick **Springboard Moonsault *'Nicknames:' **“The Prodigy” (PWG) **“The Archangel” (WCSF) **“The Wrestling Machine” **“Personal Jesus” (WCSF) **“King of the Cage Match” **“Mr. Intensity” (ROH) **"The Revolution" (ROH/WCSF) Championships and accomplishments *'AWA Washington' :*AWA Washington Tag Team Champion (1 time) – with Davey Richards *New Japan Pro Wrestling :* Best of the Super Juniors 2010 :*IWGP Junior Heavyweight Championship (2 times) *'Pro Wrestling NOAH' :*GHC Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Rage Mishima :*GHC Heavyweight Tag Team Championship (1 time) – with Rage Mishima *'Pro Wrestling Guerrilla' :*PWG World Tag Team Championship (2 times) – with Davey Richards and Alex Shelley Category:Wrestlers